


Where it's all a blur (you are the hard line)

by may_tricks



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/may_tricks/pseuds/may_tricks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The six hour time difference between Paris and Quantico is comforting, at least he can tell himself the future has her in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where it's all a blur (you are the hard line)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Criminal Minds nor the song "Peace Sign" by LIGHTS.
> 
> Spoilers: Set following "Lauren" into early season 7.

At first, JJ had been hesitant to bring it up with the rest of the team. She wasn't sure if it was inappropriate to offer rooting around in their friend's life, but guilt is a physical thing and she can't carry any more of it.

They meet in Emily's apartment on one of their rare days off. They come with cardboard boxes and enough bubble-wrap to secure a small city then break into groups. The ladies cover the bedroom, Reid and Morgan the living room, leaving Hotch and Rossi with the kitchen. He's packed up a house before, too many times, and it always takes longer than he thinks.

“It looks like she lived here,” Reid comments, unable to disturb anything just yet.

There's an afghan thrown haphazardly across the couch, a couple paperbacks on the coffee table, and a phone charger plugged into a nearby electrical socket. Sergio is curled up on a nearby chair, his dark hair shedding in sheets.

Hotch looks over from the kitchen, sees what Reid sees, and has to agree.

He and Dave start with the cupboards and fridge, clearing out the contents. It seems they've drawn the long straws because there's nothing too sentimental about checking expiration dates. Hotch might be wrong, however, when he finds a notepad with a To Do List written on it:

_Go to dry-cleaners_

_Buy more food for Sergio_

_Wrap dad's birthday gift_

When Garcia comes in to tearfully ask for another roll of packing tape, she stops short at Hotch with the notepad in hand.

“What's the matter?”

He shows her the list and watches a fresh wash of tears threaten to fall.

Heartbreak is a universal language.

* * *

  
There's no will so they all choose their own inheritance.

Garcia adopts Sergio and takes all the unused lint rollers in Emily's apartment. Rossi finds old jazz CDs and keeps them in his car, listening to them when he forgets what it felt like to have Emily sit in companionable silence with him. Morgan gathers the books, giving special care to the entire work of Vonnegut. Reid collects nick-knacks that feel both out of place yet intrinsically Emily, then challenges everyone to beat his star puzzle solution time. JJ takes her black boots, the “lucky” ones she bought when she was placed with the BAU and are somehow still in one piece despite the wear and tear of field work. Seaver doesn't know if it's her place to do this, even though she's mourning too. Garcia and JJ convince her that it's alright, manage to find something Seaver is comfortable accepting. It's a porcelain cat figurine that Emily found at a market she and Penelope once combed through. It looks a little silly and it makes Seaver smile so it has real estate on her desk from that point forward.

The team tells Hotch to pick something too, some kind of keepsake. There's one box labelled _Clothes_ in big, block print. He feels more than ridiculous tearing the tape off the flaps then digging through it but the discomfort is worth it when he discovers what he's looking for.

It's a blue sweatshirt with writing in white: YALE

No one asks, which is for the best because he doesn't have an answer. He's seen Emily wear it a few times while on away cases, and remembers her saying it was a gift. The first time he met Emily, only once in passing, she was attending to Yale.

He likes thinking about her as someone excited for her future.

* * *

  
In his dream they're on Benjamin Cryus' ranch. She's wearing a light blue shirt, poppy red where she bled, stumbling out of a building with bomb about to go off.

When she looks at him, scared brown eyes searching his, Hotch is about to start running to her when she mouths _“no.”_

The ranch implodes and he can't see past fire and debris. He can't see Emily anymore; she's either hit the deck or taken off. Once the debris clears and the flames quell, Hotch can see her face-down in the rubble. There's dark hair everywhere so when he reaches her he has to push it away to get a good look at her.

Cuts and bruises, some from Cyrus and others from the explosion. He yells for a medic, for anyone, because she's not breathing and there's blood he can't stop.

She blinks up at him, such a small movement that he nearly misses it. It's just like Kate because he feels the life go out of her too. Then he's holding her like he held Haley and it's not right that he can be this close to Emily only when she's gone.

* * *

  
He wakes up in a cold sweat, pulls his shirt over his head because it's soaked through and he's suffocating. It takes a bit to remember how to breathe. It's three in the morning but he takes a shower anyway, hoping he's quiet enough not wake Jack down the hall. In the shower he watches the water circle the drain, the streaks on the glass.

Do all children watch the water drops run down window panes to see which one will make it to the bottom first?

The dream had seemed so real. Logically, he knew she was fine after Cyrus, or at least as fine as one can be after having the shit kicked out of them. Emily's tough though, she always has been. She had a stake in her stomach and she lived. Maybe she's indestructible, a thought Hotch toys with when no one else is watching.

He can't risk letting anyone other than JJ know the truth.

It's too late to call JJ, not that he'd have anything to say anyway. He's not much for baring his soul and it would be disruptive to call her just to keep her tied up for dead air. It'd be nice to hear steady breaths, though; the sound of something consistent. Nothing is stable these days.

In the end, Hotch cracks open the door to Jack's bedroom and sits in the hallway until he falls asleep. Jack is hard to hear from a distance, he's sleeps so peacefully, but it's enough for tonight.

* * *

  
Being a profiler requires more than a decent understanding of human psychology. That said, Hotch doesn't think he could ever be a shrink.

He has his team come one by one for psych evaluations. To make them less clinical, he tries to make them more like conversations. Despite what they all think it's less about the job, it's just as good an excuse as any.

No one necessarily feels like they can come to him about this. It's not that they don't trust him or that they aren't friends, he knows this. It's just that he's quieter, more reserved, hardened, and detached. He tries to soften his edges for them but it's almost impossible without Emily.

She'd probably think it ridiculous but sometimes she made him feel a little more human.

Each of his agents grieves differently. Reid is scared, lost, confused. Morgan is angry, hurting, confused. Garcia is broken, desperate, confused. Rossi is resolute, numbing, confused.

JJ is ashamed, guilty, relieved.

She knows she did the right thing and it burns her up inside like Cyrus' ranch going up in flames and the IED beneath a SUV on a New York City street.

“What do you think she's doing right now?”

He checks his watch. “It's 4pm in Paris. She has still has some of her day left.”

“I like to think it's sunny so she can go outside, take a walk somewhere.”

“She could see some museums, grab a coffee.”

JJ laughs but there's nothing in it. “I almost called you last night.”

“Did you need to talk? We can now.”

She shakes her head, sets her gaze to a random spot on the wall.

“I don't know where to feel safe. I can't talk to Will because he can't know, I can't talk to Pen or Spence or Derek or Dave, I have to walk past her desk every day. I thought if I called you then I could—” her sentence drifts off.

“I almost called you too,” Hotch reveals, his voice reed thin.

Alert, her eyes widen with surprise.

“Sometimes I don't think I deserve to know.”

“What are you talking about Hotch?”

“I feel selfish because I don't have to mourn her the same way and then—”

“You feel resentful because everyone else doesn't have to hide this?”

“Yes.”

“You're not the bad guy here.”

“Neither are you.”

They catch a case a few hours later. It makes him feel a bit sick, but Hotch finds himself taking perverse comfort in the idea that there are clear good guys and bad guys, as if it's ever that easy.

* * *

  
In Tuscon, Hotch and Rossi sit in a plastic lawn chairs on a hotel room balcony.

They talk for hours, clearing the day away before their flight home the next morning. They talk until Dave turns in for the night and suggests Hotch try to get some shut eye too.

Their suite has two double beds with about two feet between them. Hotch takes a moment to appreciate the proximity because Jack is in Virginia and Emily is in France and he has so many people he cares about that he gets to live beside every day. He knows he's one of the lucky ones.

It's not the first time he's felt grateful since Emily left but it this time he doesn't feel bad about it.

* * *

  
When he can, Hotch visits Emily's grave.

It probably doesn't reflect well on their relationship that he's visits her more now than he did before. There were always team outings, bars and restaurants and sometimes gatherings at their own apartments, where everyone could be human for a few hours. He's not spent much one-on-one time with Emily. This time is used to making that up, but it still falls short.

The ground was thawed enough to bury the casket in March. When his father died in January the ground was frozen so they had to wait.

Hotch doesn't visit him.

For Emily, he tries to go monthly. It's difficult between work, home, and visiting Haley with Jack. It's strange carving out time for her but it's important. It turns out he misses her a lot more than he thought he would, which is saying something considering the devastation that nearly took him out when he stood outside the Operating Room.

There was a moment when she was being wheeled in that his arm came out toward the gurney. Somehow between the wall of nurses' scrubs and rushing bodies, his fingers managed to catch Emily's arm; skin on skin for a split-second.

Three feet away and cross-continental shouldn't feel interchangeable.

* * *

  
In another dream, she's crumbled on a cement floor with a laceration on her forehead that'll leave a nasty mark.

She's not an agent right now; her resignation is pending. There's blood on the sleeve when he presses it to her head, hoping to high Heaven that it'll stop the seeping but is well aware she'll need medical attention. On the ground she looks slighter, especially when she winces, twisting away from him. Hotch doesn't blame her but it still hurts to know he's the one causing pain instead of taking it away.

They take her away in the ambulance, the sirens blaring down the street. He realizes he's running only after he's broken out into a sprint. The cookie-cutter houses that line either side of the street blend into one another, neat little replicas. The road is wide and long and getting longer and longer still as the ambulance peels away. He runs as the sun sets, well into the dark, until he can't even seen the red and blue lights anymore. All there is is noise: the high pitch wails of the siren sounding off.

When he comes to he's flipped on his side with the landline in a death grip. He's grabbed it off the charging dock, already dialed the number because he knows it by heart.

_“The number you are trying to reach is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again.”  
_

* * *

  
They're at Penelope's apartment, watching black and white movies.

There are only five seats in the living room: two chairs and a couch. Garcia offers to bring in more chairs but Reid and JJ are happy to fold down on the carpeted floor, sitting cross-legged. JJ leans back against Garcia's shins while Spencer weighs down on JJ's shoulder. They all look years younger, especially with the TV light reflecting on their faces.

On the couch, Morgan has an arm wound around both Garcia and Seaver's shoulders. It's a friendly, faux-flirtatious move that leaves Hotch wondering if maybe there's an alternative motive. Sometimes the only touch his agents feel all day is corpses and suspects and murderers. Maybe he needs to remember what it feels like to be a human for a little while, if only for a few hours.

They're more than halfway through the film when Sergio, who has been crawling figure eights beneath the coffee table, leaps up into Hotch's lap. He takes a moment to get adjusted then settles down and the team regards both with vague amusement. Smoothing his fingers through thick, black fur, Hotch feels the vibration of Sergio's purr. He hopes wherever Emily is that she's with someone who cares about her.

* * *

  
When he gets home it's late enough that Jack is still at Jessica's so Hotch has the house to himself.

He never orders Jack to put away his toys or to remember to take the DVD out of the player when he's done with it because he's frightened of coming home to something even emptier. Jack often cleans up anyway though, mostly when Jessica reminds him but sometimes on his own. Hotch counts it a victory if Jack bothers to wash up before meals without prompt.

The living room is a warzone. There are little plastic soldiers placed precariously over nearly every flat surface, and a toy tank in the centre of the wreckage. He's careful not to disrupt anything even if Jack isn't likely to notice a stray piece lost in the shuffle: no man left behind. On the couch, Hotch collapses. He shouldn't get too comfortable if he wants a decent sleep but he's never in his living room enough. His house is a lot more of a pit-stop these past few years so when he's home for any period of time he tries to appreciate the little things, trappings of a life outside of the field.

When he makes it up to his bedroom he goes through the regular nightly ritual but stops before climbing into bed. It had been a rough case, so much so that he'd fought with himself about waking up Jack and bringing him home out of sheer gratefulness. Instead, he pulls open one of the drawers that are built into his bed, and retrieves the folded up sweater he keeps beside old family mementos and souvenirs and his own university spirit-wear.

He ties the Yale sweater around one of his pillows, pushes back the comforter, and gets into bed. He falls asleep to the scent of a laundry detergent he doesn't use and tells himself he'll take Jack out for breakfast in the morning, just the two of them.

* * *

  
One of his favourite memories of Emily is the first night she met Haley.

She had been the one to wave him and Haley over to where the rest of the team managed to occupy some seats. He walked Haley over, took her cardigan to place on the back of her seat, and pulled the chair out for her. It was a fond routine of theirs so he shouldn't have been surprised when Haley pecked his cheek in thanks. Emily had seen, a friendly look on her face but there was no masking her surprise at the simple affection, which had Hotch feeling unnervingly shy at the time.

“Hi, I'm Haley.”

“Nice to meet you, I'm Emily.”

“Aaron mentioned.”

Then, expanding.

“Don't worry,” she laughed. “Only nice things.”

That was news to Emily, whose eyebrows shot up before she had a chance to stop herself.

“He says you've travelled?”

“Growing up. My parents moved around a lot.”

“That must have been exciting.”

“You see beautiful things and meet interesting people.”

“Where was your favourite place to live?”

Emily had considered the question, “Morocco was amazing.”

Looking back, Hotch knows it hadn't been the surprisingly natural ebb and flow of conversation that made him cherish the moment, or how Emily and Haley hit it off. It had been him taking Haley out on to the floor and seeing the look on Emily's face, how happy she'd been to see him happy and that it was the most relaxed he'd been around her since she walked into his office with her transfer paperwork.

* * *

  
“Why do people fall in love?”

Jack's been asking lots of questions lately. Why is the sky blue? Why is grass green? Why aren't hearts heart-shaped? Who invented time? Who invented words? How do donuts get jelly centres? How come Aunt Jessica can curl her tongue but he can't curl his? How do parents know what to do when a baby cries? Why are dandelions bad but flowers in shops are good? Why do people write in cursive?

Hotch doesn't have all the answers but he makes an effort to provide as many as possible. He genuinely likes being asked because sometimes he'll throw in silly made up answers just to test Jack and hear him laugh. This question, however, completely stumps him.

“There's lots of reasons,” he settles on. Jack will need much more elaboration than that, of course, but it's buying time.

“Most the time it's because someone makes you feel good, like making a new friend.”

“Nu-uh,” Jack shakes his head. “Not that kind. The kissing kind.”

He wants to know where Jack is getting this from. Does he have a crush? Are children at school playing make-believe? Is he seeing his aunt and uncle being affectionate and wondering because he's too young to remember seeing his own parents like that?

If Reid were here then Jack could get a science lesson on chemicals and neurons, a breakdown of nature, and even though it probably wouldn't be what Jack's looking for, Hotch can see the merit in having an empirical framework.

“Lots of people have lots of ideas but no one really knows for sure.”

He pauses, nervous to ask a question he isn't ready to have answered.

“Why, buddy? Are you in love?”

“No,” he replies simply, his concentration moving from his father to the piece of paper he's begun colouring in yellow. “Miss Madeline at school is in love so she's having a wedding.”

Oh, thank fucking God.

“I'm making a card 'cause she says that weddings are happy and there's gonna be a big party. You give gifts at a party, right?”

“Yes,” he breathes, relieved. “Do you want to buy Miss Madeline a gift?”

“Please!”

They go shopping the next day and it's unnerving to Hotch that he can't stop thinking about Emily.

* * *

  
He doesn't think about her when he gets the order to take the lead on a special task force, when he tearfully says goodbye to his family and friends at the airport, or when he touches down in Pakistan.

He doesn't think about her until one of the men on his temporary base asks him if he's got family at home.

“My son Jack.”

The other man nods, asks him about what it's like to have a kid. He's honest: it's terrifying. It's the most amazing thing in the world and he can't believe there are so many ways to fuck it all up, one of which is to board a jet for a private mission because that's the job.

“My girl and I thought about doing that but we had to put that on hold when I got called in.”

“What's she like?”

“Here, I got a picture.”

The woman in the image has a dazzling smile and a small child curled around her, who she's giving a piggyback ride.

“That's her with our niece.”

“Cute kid, what's her name?”

“Jenna.”

“And your wife's?”

“Emily.”

He doesn't have time to think about her because an alert comes in and it's back to business.

* * *

  
She's trapped inside an SUV in what is another unwelcome dream.

There's glass and blood everywhere. The man in the driver's seat is dead and Emily is staring at him, lifeless. She's bound to her seat, her whole body scored with pain, but she has to figure out what to do next. With every ounce of energy in her, she crawls out of the overturned vehicle, and scrabbles for safety. He reaches for him, she looks up, but she sees right through him.

 _“Help!”_ She screams at the top of her lungs.

_“I need a medic! Man down! We need help!”_

It's fruitless but Hotch tries pulling her to her feet. He's like a ghost; he may as well not even be here. Emily turns manages to get to her feet, just barely, and heads to where she hopes her phone will be so she can call for assistance.

He can't see inside the vehicle but he knows this part. It's dreams like this that feel the most frightening, almost approaching an nightmare, because they're painful memories that can't be shaken off once he wakes up.

When he follows Emily back to the vehicle he freezes by what he sees.

He's strapped in by the seat-belt and the airbag has deployed: a total loss.

 _“He's gone,”_ she informs whoever she's calling, having found her phone somewhere in the disaster site. _“He's gone.”_

She's not quite crying—the tears stick to her eyelashes.

Hotch wakes up with a stiff arm, risen in the air with his hand holding on to what once was Emily's shoulder.

* * *

  
When he sees her again it's about twenty minutes before the rest of the team does.

He's not much of a welcome wagon but she doesn't seem to mind, at least if her arms coming up around him is anything to go by.

It only occurs to him that she might not have expected much in return when she tightens then relaxes in the embrace. They've never hugged before, the realization rattling him. He decides that this is making up for lost time, holding her as close as he can to feel her chest rising and falling against his. It's like receiving CPR, how she's breathing life into him. She speaks but it takes a while for the words to mean anything to him because they're just sounds drowned out by her heartbeat and even breathing.

He drops his arms when he feels her letting go, her hands lingering on his back for a moment. She pulls away while he stays still and he nearly loses his cool when her cheek brushes against his.

“You have a beard.”

“Better than being in a boyband,” he deadpans.

JJ knocks on Hotch's office door, identifies herself, waiting to be let in. Hotch unlocks the door and takes the folder JJ offers him on her way to Emily, drawing her into a quick hug before they debrief.

* * *

  
She follows him back to the BAU after everything with Doyle goes down.

He told everyone to call it a night because there's nothing else to do. When he gets back to the bullpen, Emily is hot on his heels. He doesn't stop for her because anything they have to say to one another is best saved for the sanctity of an enclosed space without prying eyes. It had been his intention to give her space after everything but she's here now and he can't pretend he isn't happy about that.

“Please don't hate me,” she blurts out.

Despite having every reason under the sun, she isn't crying. Her plea is followed by her stalking forward until she's half a foot in front of him and her wild eyes have met his.

“You and the team, you can all hate me tomorrow but you can't hate me right now because I just came back from the dead and Declan was my responsibility and I watched a man— _the man who_ —” she can't finish the thought, can't give it precedence in this moment. “I watched him _die_ tonight, Hotch, so I don't care if it's selfish, all I ever wanted was to protect my family. No one can hate me for that.”

He's got her in his arms before she's done, afraid that she'll collapse under the weight of everything if he isn't here to hold her up. Tremors wrack her body, she's trembling like a leaf when she falls against him; head bowed, torso bent. Shock keeps the tears at bay but she's got him in a vice and he's rubbing circles across her back, big then small then big again.

Once the shaking subsides, Emily straightens herself out. She stands upright, turning on autopilot to smooth out her clothes and hair. Hotch tries to keep the worry out of his eyes, aware that he's failing by an embarrassingly wide margin.

She doesn't comment on it but her lips scrape his beard. There's no hesitation and it's over in the blink of an eye but it makes up for weeks and months.

“I'll see you in the morning.”

* * *

  
Two weeks of having her stateside, Hotch invites her to dinner with him and Jack.

Last week she had dinner with JJ, Will, and Henry, so she says she's feeling popular these days. At JJ's they built their own pizzas, which JJ had to buy double the pepperoni for because right now it's the only topping Henry can stomach and he dumps it on like it's going out of style.

“Well it's not pizza but it's probably palatable.”

“Ooh, you sure know how to treat a girl right,” she teases as she gets up to wash her hands. “Where do you keep your hand mixer?”

“Far left bottom drawer. Blades are in the top drawer.”

It's something even Hotch doesn't think he could mess up: meatloaf and whipped potatoes. Jack is doing his homework with Emily stationed at his side, helping him with fractions by using cubes of diced up potatoes as teaching aids. It had been useless trying to convince her not to help out; she's as much of a workaholic as the rest of their team. When she's done whipping the potatoes she hands a blade off to Jack then offers the other to Hotch, who declines, and watches her take it for herself.

She washes them immediately rather than dumping them in the sink like Hotch prefers to. He jokes that she's too buttoned up, smirking when she rolls her eyes.

“How's the math coming along, buddy?”

“All done,” Jack announces. “Can me and Emily play video-games now?”

“We're about to eat. Why don't you go wash up?”

Jack leaves his workbook and materials spread out on the table when he leaves for the bathroom so Hotch tucks it out of the way.

“Would you like anything to drink?”

“I have a drink,” she points out.

“Something harder than white grape juice?”

“I'm fine but if you don't want me slumming then you can pour it in a wineglass.”

It's just a joke but he does so anyway, filling it halfway then sliding it across the tabletop for her.

“I missed you.”

Her honesty makes him wish he had drank something harder.

“I missed you too.”

Dinner is better than palatable, Emily even packs up leftovers. Afterwards, she and Jack play a few rounds of a racing game that Emily probably didn't lose on purpose while Hotch does the dishes. She insists he let her help but Jack is putting in a new game and calling for her attention. When she leaves for the night, Hotch and Jack walk her to her car. Hotch swings Jack up in his arms so he's face-to-face with Emily.

“Thanks for eating and playing with us.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” she grins back, kissing him on the cheek. Jack kisses hers too.

Feeling brave, Hotch doesn't stop to analyze, only presses a soft kiss against her pale cheek.

“Call or text once you're at Penelope's.”

* * *

  
They move Emily into her new apartment.

It has to be the only time in the history of changing addresses that the mover's friends are genuinely excited to help them. However, in time honoured fashion, Emily still supplies drinks and pizza. Penelope is surprised to find that JJ kept the boxes of Emily's clothing in storage, unable to give them away even when she wasn't so sure it would ever be safe for Emily to return, but Emily still jokes about needing a girls only shopping trip soon. Her parents donated most of her furniture so the team works at setting that up—a hilarious misadventure in reading IKEA furniture.

She's not allowed to pain but she can put up decor so Garcia and JJ become interior designers. Jack and Henry pop as much bubble-wrap as possible then play board-games in the home office where it isn't so busy. Emily promises to show off the new place once everything is not just set up but also cleaned up, and one by one the team filters out.

“Shoot,” Emily breathes when it's only Hotch and Jack left behind, Jack curled up on the couch.

“What's the matter?”

“I forgot to ask JJ if she knew where my Yale sweater disappeared to.”

Every atom in him stills. He may very well be dying an extremely slow death.

“Emily, I—”

Trying to curb his mortification, he knows it's best to get this over with.

When he gathers his courage he sees a smile is split open on her face, the same face she made when Morgan has a date or Reid makes a harmless mistake. A little bit conniving, entirely disarming.

“She told you?”

“In her defence, I got her _pretty_ liquored up first. She wouldn't have told me otherwise.”

“Traitor,” he mutters.

Emily smirks, steps around the island so she's in his personal space, her gaze sneaking to Jack to check that he's still sound asleep.

“You don't have to give it back.”

Her voice is low, her eyes hooded. She looks like a damn fantasy and he's a total goner.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

He doesn't know why he's fighting, maybe because it's all he knows. Thank God she's patient, or at least amused. Her nails—growing now, she's been biting less—drag gently across his cheek.

“I'll deny it if it ever gets out but I gotta say that the beard was a good look on you.”

“You really go for that? Not too cliche?”

“There's something sexy about a little facial hair,” she admits. “But this looks better.”

His hand comes up to clasp around her wrist. He brings his other hand to her lower back, beneath the soft material of her shirt. She arches into him, drops her hand to his neck, and feels his pulse race. When he kisses her it's entirely respectable, a first kiss that doesn't push too far too soon but is nonetheless deliberate and even a little knowing, as he eases in with a bit of tongue, grazing her teeth.

Her smile is probably the best part.

* * *

  
The first night she spends at his place is in late November.

It's chilly even with the heat on, a cold snap striking Virginia. She wanders into the kitchen in gym shorts and her old Yale sweater.

She's pouring herself a glass of water, trying to be as quiet as possible. It had been damn near impossible getting out of Hotch's room without waking him; she's had easier missions when she worked for JTF-12. Years of field work has left him an obnoxiously light sleeper and while a large piece of her remains blown away by how much she loved waking up in his arms, such sentimentality could barely eclipse the fact that she was thirsty and also had to pee.

Going to the bathroom was a feat, playing with fire when she flushed and again when she ran the faucet. But she'd succeeded and now she's left with getting a drink then heading back to bed.

A light flicks on behind her, _busted._

“You're hungry too?”

She smiles at that, waves her glass at him.

“You've worked up an appetite,” he informs her while finishing a fresh peach in a few bites.

“Don't be so modest. Hey, you don't have any plans right now, do you?”

“At 1:30 in the morning on a Thursday? Can't say I do.”

It's the teasing twist of her lips that does it and he has her seated on the counter in nothing flat, his hands underneath the sweater to her breasts while her hands force down his pants. It's fast and thrilling even though it's pretty vanilla, as far as things could go. When they're done, still mostly dressed, she hops off the counter and takes his hand.

“If we get enough sleep we can see about an early morning encore.”

* * *

  
He dreams of her. The details are blurry, the only clear one of her face, fog in her eyes.

When he wakes up he's alone. It's hearing movement in the en suite that calms him down.

She comes out with a towel in her hair, dripping all over the carpet, and he kisses her because he can. She kisses back and suddenly it doesn't matter why it took this long for them to get here or even how it happened. There's isn't time or space for an inquisition, it's just this, the way it's supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope that you have a charmed day :)


End file.
